Government launches £12bn tender for cleaning contracts

The government is to launch a £12bn tender for cleaning and maintenance services at schools, hospitals and in other public buildings. 

The move comes in the wake of Carillion's collapse and is part of the government's aim to give a third of public sector work to SMEs by 2020. 

Public sector data analysts Tussell have said that this is the first time so many of these contracts have been procured at once. However there are concerns that managing so many different suppliers would be a nightmare for the civil service, who have struggled to oversee outsourced work in the past. This was one of the reasons companies such as Carillion ended up with so much of certain types of work. 

The contracts for the new framework are yet to be published, but tender documents reveal that the values could range from £500m to £1.4bn.